[F]or any of those who still believe that pay has any relationship to performance, check out (Home Depot‘s ex-CEO) Nardelli’s pay relative to that of Robert Niblock’s at Lowe’s.

Over the last three years, Nardelli’s base salary, bonus, and other compensation (loan forgiveness) totaled $37.4 million – more than quadruple the $8.1 million that Niblock got! The picture gets a lot worse when you add in grants of restricted stock and options.

Over the last three years, Nardelli got almost $40 million in restricted stock, and over 1.7 million options. Niblock got $9.4 million in restricted stock and 272,000 options. (…)

[The] new Home Depot CEO Frank Blake has a radically different compensation structure than his predecessor. He may earn up to $8.9 million this year, but a hefty portion of that is at risk, and he has no severance package. (Money)